The Idiot is a novel written by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and first published in 1869. The original Russian title is Идиот, "Idiot" (the Russian language does not use definite articles).
Russian novelist, journalist, short-story writer, whose psychological penetration into the human soul profoundly influenced the 20th century novel, Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a staff doctor at the Hospital for the Poor. Dostoevsky was educated at home and at a private school. With his pious mother he made annual pilgrimages to the monastery of the Trinity and Saint Sergei. Shortly after her death in 1837, he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Academy for Military Engineers. He had no interest in military engineering but at the academy he could also study Russian and French literature.
His first novel, Poor Folk (1846), which he wrote in a little over nine months in his small room, gained a great success with the critics, who hailed Dostoevsky as the new Gogol. "We all came from Gogol's overcoat," Dostoevsky said. One critic remarked dryly, "You have Gogols growing like mushrooms."
Now we talk of the second great novel of Dostoevskij (I have read this book during my Christmas holidays in Riccione), "L'idiota", pubblicato nel 1869 (http://bur.rcslibri.corriere.it/). Il tema centrale dell’opera è lo splendore della bellezza, la purezza eversiva del bene, che s'incarna nella figura del principe Myskin che è l’ultimo erede di una grande famiglia decaduta. Il personaggio è una creatura spiritualmente superiore, in cui la generosità d'animo e la candida fede nel prossimo si accompagnano ad una totale inesperienza di vita e ad una sorta di paralisi della volontà, Queste caratteristiche che sembrano scaturire dal fatto che egli è cresciuto in un villaggio svizzero dove è guarito da una malattia nervosa, lo portano ad essere indifeso e fiducioso nel prossimo. Di ritorno in Russia, si scontra con una società malata e crudele, dove il suo atteggiamento bonario ed innocente è considerato da “idiota”.
On the train to Saint Petersburg, Myshkin meets and befriends the dark and impassioned Rogozhin. The latter tells the prince about his passion for Nastasya Filippovna, a beautiful woman with a bad reputation.
Dostoevsky's motives for writing The Idiot stem from his desire to depict the "positively good man". This man is naturally likened to Christ in many ways. Dostoevsky uses Myshkin's introduction to the Petersburg society as a way to contrast the nature of Russian society at the time and the isolation and innocence of this good man. This is highlighted by his conflicts and relationship with Rogozhin; Rogozhin, though he truly loves Nastasya, commits murder in the end. Nastasya herself has been corrupted by a depraved society. Her beauty and initial innocence has led Totsky (perhaps the most repugnant of characters in the novel) to keep her as a concubine and she falls into a quasi-madness.
